Today, the European Commission has adopted a European Strategy on Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), a milestone towards cooperative, connected and automated mobility. The Strategy will make it possible to deploy vehicles that can talk to each other and to the infrastructure on EU roads as of 2019.

Digital connectivity is expected to significantly improve road safety, traffic efficiency and comfort of driving, while boosting the market of cooperative, connected and automated driving and the related creation of jobs. The Strategy therefore delivers on the Commission's political priorities, notably its Agenda for Jobs, Growth and Investment, the Digital Single Market and the Energy Union Strategy.

EU Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc said: "My ambition is to see connected and cooperative vehicles on European roads by 2019 and the Strategy we adopted today is a decisive step in that direction. It will create the necessary conditions for vehicles to communicate with each other and with the infrastructure. This will make our roads safer and reduce energy consumption. On the long-run, it will also help integrate automated vehicles in the transport system."

The main elements of the Strategy are the following:

Avoid a fragmented internal market

Define and support common priorities

Use a mix of communication technologies

Address security and data protection issues

Develop the right legal framework

Cooperate at international level

The Strategy foresees the adoption of the appropriate legal framework at EU level by 2018 to ensure legal certainty for public and private investors. It also addresses the availability of EU funding for research and development projects and international cooperation, such as at the G7 level, on all aspects related to cooperative, connected and automated vehicles.

It also involves continuous coordination, in a learning-by-doing approach, with the C-ROADS platform, which gathers real-life deployment projects in Member States. With the help of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), projects in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom have received funding.